Pentagon creates first ever special cell to speed up defence ties with India

By PTI | 15 Sep, 2015,

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has established a first-ever country special cell to speed up its defence ties with India and accelerate the process of co-development and co-production of hi-tech military equipment in the country.

Established soon after Defence Secretary Ashton Carter assumed Pentagon's leadership role in February, India Rapid Reaction Cell ( IRRC) is headed by Keith Webster, Director, International Cooperation Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

we should be close with BRICS... Amrika will use and throw us in no time

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I agree! We're heading towards putting all our eggs in one basket - America's! And that is dangerous! We will be subject to blackmail sooner or later just like what happened after our nuke tests when the US of A slapped sanctions on us - one of the reasons we could not get engines for the Tejas, delaying the project by years.

I agree! We're heading towards putting all our eggs in one basket - America's! And that is dangerous! We will be subject to blackmail sooner or later just like what happened after our nuke tests when the US of A slapped sanctions on us - one of the reasons we could not get engines for the Tejas, delaying the project by years.

The United States and India will hold their first-ever Strategic and Commercial Dialogue next week in Washington. This strategic and commercial consolidation is a little-noticed but important outcome of President Obama’s meeting with Prime Minister Modi at the Indian Republic Day last January. Now the Obama administration is pulling out all the stops to make this U.S. engagement a success and a key demonstration that the administration’s “rebalance to Asia” is more than just rhetoric.

The Modi administration is reciprocating by sending some of its brightest stars to the meeting and following-up with another visit from the Prime Minister himself. His trip will include a visit to Silicon Valley to see how the U.S. does innovation and culminate in an unprecedented third- within- a -year summit with Obama in New York on September 28. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House on September 24 -25 occurs between the U.S.-India dialogue and the Modi summit – a sequence that will not be lost on Chinese policy makers. Nor will the virtually simultaneous visit to Washington of Pope Francis featuring a protection of the earth theme be ignored as Obama tries to push India toward a commitment on climate change, as he previously did China. Obama has declared climate change a strategic priority. An Indian commitment could pave the way for a substantive agreement in Paris this December.

Indeed, clean energy and its positive effects on the environment will be central to a U.S.-India energy dialogue that will occur the day before and feed into the strategic and commercial meeting. Indian Minister of New and Renewable Energy, Power, and Coal Piyush Goyal will confer with his U.S. counterpart, Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz.

Just after the energy conference and just before the strategic and commercial dialogue, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, and visiting Indian ministers will headline the US-India Business Council annual dinner. A CEO forum and The Energy Research Institute (TERI) will incorporate major leaders of U.S. and Indian business into the agenda.

The prominence being given commerce and business underlines basic realities regarding the U.S.-India economic relationship.

The days of government action being the driving force in U.S.-India economic engagement are over. A “green revolution” aid model, i.e. provision of U.S. technology and resources on a non-commercial basis, no longer has much relevance in the U.S.-Indian context. The U.S. government acting alone simply does not have the resources to make much difference to economic growth in India even though India needs outside help. At times this seems hard for the Indian side to understand and even harder for the U.S. side to admit. Today U.S.-India economic engagement must be driven largely by the private sector on commercial terms. The opportunities for public-private cooperation to fuel mutually beneficial economic development are immense and the necessity for policy coordination is essential. Thus, there is a need for combining strategic and commercial considerations.

However, strategic and commercial factors do not always operate in virtuous circles. They can result in vicious downward spirals as well. Economic and commercial engagement gone awry can drive the world’s two largest democracies apart as well as bring them together. India has just lost a WTO dispute brought by the U.S. about local content in solar projects. India plans to appeal. Less than two years ago, a U.S. business coalition got more than 170 members of Congress to sign on to a letter questioning the fairness of Indian trade practices and instigated a highly critical report of the U.S. International Trade Commission. The ITC is due to issue a follow-up report soon, and it will not be entirely favorable to India.

More importantly, the U.S. and Indian economic models presently may not be sufficiently compatible to support a long-term strategic partnership. Further reforms are needed on both sides. State-owned enterprises are widespread at all levels of Indian government and often make a mockery of the term “free enterprise.” The fundamental economic reforms that drove closer U.S.-Indian strategic relations beginning in the early 1990s have once again stalled. Even the word “privatization” is anathema to large segments of the Indian political establishment. The euphemism “disinvestment” is used to try to get around this difficulty, but the fact remains that the dead hand of governmental bureaucracy still directly controls large segments of the Indian economy.

Nor should the United States be complacent in a belief that it has perfected an economic model that works for promotion of growth and prosperity in India. Neither India nor the rest of the world has forgotten that the great recession of 2008 -2011 began with a meltdown in U.S. financial markets. A system that tolerates – some say “promotes” – vast swings in economic stability and provides income inequality that caters to the top one-half of 1 percent is not wholly attractive to a nation that has 400 million of some of the poorest people on earth.

Unquestionably, economic engagement on commercial terms has been a driver in the ability of the United States and India to move from estrangement to cooperation on strategic issues. The eight days stretching from the U.S.-India energy dialogue through the strategic and commercial dialogue to Modi UN and Silicon Valley visits and culminating in yet another Obama-Modi summit may prove to be pivotal in U.S. Indian relations. Or this sequence of events may be just window-dressing in a seemingly endless string of U.S.-India discussions and photo ops – overshadowed perhaps by the visits of a Catholic Pope and a Chinese President. However, if the world’s largest democracies are to provide the dynamism for a rebalancing toward Asia, these dialogues must be more than just talk: they must show results.

Raymond E. Vickery Jr. is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center; Of Counsel at Hogan Lovells; Senior Advisor at Albright Stonebridge; and a former Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Trade Development, in the Clinton Administration. The opinions expressed in this pieces are solely those of the author.

Indeed, clean energy and its positive effects on the environment will be central to a U.S.-India energy dialogue that will occur the day before and feed into the strategic and commercial meeting. Indian Minister of New and Renewable Energy, Power, and Coal Piyush Goyal will confer with his U.S. counterpart, Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz.

Law360, New York (February 6, 2013, 1:42 PM ET) -- The U.S. has filed a World Trade Organization complaint alleging that India's requirements that solar developers use domestically made equipment is unfairly restricting American solar exports, the U.S. trade representative said Wednesday.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement that the U.S. has requested formal consultations — the first step in the WTO's dispute settlement process — over so-called domestic content requirements in India's solar program. The domestic content policy requires that Indian solar producers use solar cells and other components manufactured in India.

The USTR's office said India pushes the domestic content requirements by offering subsidies to solar companies that use Indian-made equipment as opposed to imports, adding that the policy has the effect of closing off India's market to American solar companies.

Kirk said that although the U.S. is generally in favor of other countries developing solar energy, the Obama administration is also committed to bolstering the American clean energy sector, and felt the need to file the trade enforcement action against India to protect the U.S. industry's businesses and workers.

“Let me be clear: The United States strongly supports the rapid deployment of solar energy around the world, including with India,” Kirk said. “Unfortunately, India’s discriminatory policies in its national solar program detract from that successful cooperation, raise the cost of clean energy and undermine progress toward our shared objective.”

India launched its national solar policy in January 2010, and as the program has moved forward, the country has continued to expand its domestic content requirements, the USTR's office said.

During the first phase of the program, India required developers of solar projects to use Indian-manufactured solar modules and crystalline silicon solar cells, according to the U.S. As the program moves into its second phase, India has proposed expanding the domestic content requirements further, so they would include solar thin film technologies that account for the majority of American solar exports to India.

The USTR's office said India has also promised to purchase energy at a “highly subsidized tariff rate” from Indian solar developers, so long as they opt for domestically made equipment over imports. Taken in combination, the U.S. believes the actions run counter to India's commitment under various WTO agreements.

The U.S. added that it has expressed its concerns over the shape of India's solar program at various points over the past three years, including in bilateral discussions and in WTO committees.

I feel that the GE engine TOT for Tejas will be the watershed moment for USA - India relations for the short to medium term.

If we get the GE engine and its future manufactured supply in India with a win-win situation it will open up many doors for USA - India and from what has been in the news we ought to get the TOT according to the tender and GE willingness to expand and do business in and from India.

What's this obsession with BRICS. Don't get too close to anyone even Russia or Israel,just give them an impression that you are close to them.All are sc*mbags.Use them as per national interests.Every one of them tried to scr*w us and supplied arms to our enemies.

South Korea Orders Investigation In US Technology Denial For KF-X Fighter Jet Project

Simulated Imagery

South Korea has ordered an investigation in the US denial of technology for the nation’s multi-billion dollar KF-X fighter jet project. The US did not allow exports of four major technologies promised for the South Korean project in a decision made in April.

Under the project to build home-grown combat jets, Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) agreed with Lockheed Martin to obtain 25 kinds of fighter jet technologies as part of their 7.3 trillion won ($6.1 billion) deal to purchase 40 F-35 radar-evading fighters to be deployed between 2018 and 2021.

US has denied export of the four technologies that were added later to the accord clearing the rest of 21 listed citing technology protection policy. The decision on the remaining 21 is set to be made as early as November, but they have received a positive review so far, Korea Herald News daily reported Thursday.

South Korea plans to deploy 120 units by 2032. Officials at DAPA believe that they still can secure the technologies not from the US but other countries in Europe or research and development at home.“We’ve been striving to come up with ways to develop them on our own by 2025. We’ve made numerous attempts to forge overseas partnerships and did receive positive responses from some European countries,” a DAPA official was quoted as saying by the news daily as saying.

The very people who want to hog India to become America's vassal, knowing fully well it has armed Pakistan to the hilt for decades, often paying for what Pakistan was buying, whine today at the very mention of the unconfirmed reports of Russia selling Sukhoi-35 to Pakistan. Deals like this will almost certainly lead to the US keeping complete control over when we may use and when we may not use what we have paid for.

What does one make of America "sponsoring" a defence forum?

It is a pity that threads like this get culled at the inception.

Back to the point, what on earth are we supposed to do with a cell (rapid reaction cell)? What exactly is this cell? Will it bypass US Congressional restrictions? All this is a pipe-dream, and will take a miracle to come to fruition.

It is a pity that threads like this get culled at the inception.
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India needs to focus on LCA and AMCA.

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And when these products are to be imported or dangled, the surprising thing is nobody is willing to question how and why the hell do things like JSF get compared to Eurojets on LCC basis. Hell one is a production run of 2500 jets and others have a production run of a few low hundreds. The whole concept of LCC is imported straight from the JSF program office and nobody questions it all.

That there is no bloody answer for LCC manipulation, is obvious. But not even questioning these things shows what side people really are on.

To hell with this fake debating.

That thediplomat.com report linked above sums it up precisely when it says:

The U.S. government acting alone simply does not have the resources to make much difference to economic growth in India even though India needs outside help. At times this seems hard for the Indian side to understand and even harder for the U.S. side to admit. Today U.S.-India economic engagement must be driven largely by the private sector on commercial terms.